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A group of bitter fanboys want to sabotage "Black Panther"

2 February 2018

Black Panther is positioned to break box-office records around the world when it opens on Feb. 15, but there's a group of angry fans threatening to bring its score down on Rotten Tomatoes so that fewer people will see it. The group, named Down with Disney's Treatment of Franchises and its Fanboys, recently created a Facebook event called "Give Black Panther a Rotten Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes" in an effort to generated enough negative reviews to make audiences think twice about paying to see the movie.

Why? Because they believe Disney (which owns Marvel Studios, producers of Black Panther) has been paying critics to hate on DC movies like Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League, leading to their poor scores on Rotten Tomatoes. Bringing down Black Panther's audience score would be sweet revenge. The page's admin has already taken credit for Star Wars: The Last Jedi's low audience score, using it as proof that the campaign will work.

If all that sounds ridiculous to you, that's because it is.

Creating fake reviews to take down a movie does nothing to improve the quality of other films. All it does is scare people from watching something, which could lower ticket sales and essentially rob the movie's cast and crew of money they deserved for all their hard work. Plus, it hides all the actually helpful reviews that allow people to decide whether or not they want to see the film. This just makes things harder for both the filmmakers and audiences who just want to enjoy movies.

Thankfully, a bunch of vigilant users have already reported the page to Facebook, and both the group and its dubious event have been taken down. However, we all know that Facebook Group takedowns don't always work, and there's a good chance that the people behind it simply migrated to a harder-to-find page.

So what can you do to help prevent Black Panther's sabotage – as well as the sabotage of other films? Look for critics and friends who share the same tastes as you. Rely on their reviews to help you decide whether or not you want to see a movie. And if you like a film, feel free to share your thoughts about it, on Rotten Tomatoes or otherwise.

The best way to fight fake reviews, and all the hate that comes with them, is to use the truth. Besides, it's just a movie, guys.